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The Carroll School of Management’s Accounting Department is getting high marks from the American Accounting Association (AAA), which recently gave two awards to Accounting faculty.
Associate Professor Susan Shu won the prestigious Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award for her co-authored paper “Do Managers Withhold Bad News?” that was published in the Journal of Accounting Research in 2009. The three-year project refutes the conventional wisdom that managers disclose bad news in a timely manner because they don’t want to get sued. Shu and her colleagues found managers hide bad news because of career concerns, such as promotion, compensation and fear of job loss.
“Often times they gamble that things would turn around,” said Shu. “They hope that if they bury the bad news and things turn around, they’ll be OK. But when the bad news accumulates up to some threshold, they cannot withhold it anymore, and they release it. And often, we’ll see stock price crashes because bad news has been withheld and accumulated for a while.”
Shu, whose award is her first recognition by AAA, said being at the Carroll School has benefited her because of its “strong research culture that encourages high-impact research.”
She added, “I am glad that our work is making an impact on the literature and has generated widespread interest from the profession. I hope it will continue to influence people’s thinking.”
Sweeney Professor of Accounting Peter Wilson and his wife Carolyn, a lecturer, won the Innovation in Accounting Education Award, which honors persons whose work spurs interest in the study of accounting, improves the effectiveness of accounting education, demonstrates educational value and innovation, and can be adopted by other educational institutions.
The Wilsons were part of a committee of 11 faculty and professional accountants that designed a new model for teaching accounting.
“The model is catching on and gaining a lot of traction,” said Peter Wilson, who earned the AAA Outstanding Educator Award in 2005 and – while on the Stanford University faculty – the Competitive Manuscript Award in 1986. “It’s really a unifying model for integrating all areas of accounting under one framework, plus it actually unifies teaching, research, and practice.”
“It’s an honor and an unexpected, pleasant surprise,” said Carolyn Wilson of the award.
With Shu and the Wilsons, seven Carroll School faculty members have now been recognized by the AAA.